Vicious Circle: A Novel of Complicity

An Israeli government minister is assassinated in the home of his mistress. Days later, a Mossad officer leads his final raid, killing a Hamas leader in his bed and barely escaping with his life. The action moves into the near future, when world leaders, united under the leadership of a visionary female president of the United States, broker a major compromise between Israel and the Palestinian authority. Their hope is to snuff out the violent flashpoint that fuels global terrorism.

This was not my favorite by this author/reader combination. Vicious Circle is not as entertaining as the previous books, but the subject is one that needs addressing. Religious extremism of any bent is very disturbing to me and the growing clout that these intemperate people have everywhere in the world does not bode well for any hope of political stability – and not just in Palestine or the Middle East. To get inside the heads of two such religious bigots as does the author makes this worth the listen.

299 Days: The Preparation, Book 1

299 Days: The Preparation, the first audiobook in the 299 Days series, depicts the inner struggles Grant must face as he exists in a social system he recognizes as unsustainable and on the verge of collapse, but one in which he has built his life around. What begins as a return to his roots, self-sufficiency and independence, becomes a full blown move to prepare for what may come.

I enjoy of "good" disaster movie and books of the same genre. However, unless you believe Glen Beck to the the 21th century oracle and can handle a very plodding story, I would pass this one up. Book 1 has no action and no ending so if you want to get the whole tale you will need to use a total of 10 credits. I am somewhat curious where he is taking this plot but probably not $100 worth.

Skink - No Surrender

Classic Malley - to avoid being shipped off to boarding school, she takes off with some guy she met online. Poor Richard - he knows his cousin’s in trouble before she does. Wild Skink - he’s a ragged, one-eyed ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, the unlikely pair scour the state, undaunted by blinding storms, crazed pigs, flying bullets, and giant gators.

I preordered this and wish I had waited until others had reviewed it. This is in the category of a "young adult" book - very young! I was looking forward to another Skink book but all the characters have been toned way down for the audience so you have none of the biting humor, outrageous characters, and frankly the fun to be expected with Carl Hiaasen. The reader does different characters well but the overall tone is as bland as the book itself. You expect Hiassen books to have an ax to grind, but this one presents a simple message to kids to not make internet hookups. Even that message is pretty ho hum.

The Silkworm

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows.

I like the character of Comornan Strike and very much enjoyed the first book. However, after a week of trying I am going to abandon this book with 39 chapters behind me. I just don't care who did it or why. I have no empathy for the victim and the potential cast of perps are boring. Enough.

Hard Country: A Novel

National best-selling author and New Mexico native Michael McGarrity takes listeners to the wild territory of the late 19th-century American Southwest for this epic tale. After the deaths of his wife and brother, John Kerney gives up his West Texas ranch and heads south in search of a new home. Soon Kerney is offered work trailing cattle to the New Mexico Territory - a job that will forever change his life.

Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times

At the age of 22, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she met while delivering babies all over London - from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lived to the woman with 24 children who couldn't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side - illuminate a fascinating time in history.

I tend to shy away from books with women readers (even though I am a 70 year old female) only because most don't seem to have the versatility as the best of the male readers. That was before I listened to this book read by Nicola Barber. That is not to take anything away from the author because even the best reader cannot salvage a poorly written book. I am pushing my husband to listen to a book about a midwife! There can be no higher recommendation.

Fire of the Raging Dragon

In the very near future, China, now the world’s largest industrial producer and consumer of Mideast Oil, passes a law that all new cars manufactured in that nation will be operated on natural gas. Beneath the floor of the South China Sea, around the contested Spratly Islands, billions of gallons of natural gas wait to be mined. But at the center of the Spratlys, the remote but strategic island of Itu Aba is occupied by China’s historic enemy, Taiwan.

When it comes to Audible books, my husband and I are like a Venn Diagram. We each have books that we individually like and most that we both like. With a library of 800 books It has been unusual for us both to abandon a book before we finish it. Neither one of us could stand this one but not for the same reasons. He hated the preachiness; I disliked the characters and the far fetched plot.

Bad Monkey

Andrew Yancy - late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office - has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first - this being Hiaasen country - Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters.

George Wilson understands how to read Carl Hiaasen. The jewel that is Hiaasen is his outlandish characters in improbably situations which put together make for great comedy combined with serious commentary. With this reader, neither come through.

Suspect

LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well, not since a shocking nighttime assault by unidentified men killed his partner, Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode. He is unfit for duty - until he meets his new partner. Maggie is not doing so well, either. The German shepherd survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing explosives before she lost her handler to an IED and sniper attack, and her PTSD is as bad as Scott’s. They are each other’s last chance.

There is no one more "doggy" than I am and mystery is my favorite genre. I don't mind dogs as narrators. In fact, one of my all time favorites is "The Art of Racing in the Rain." This book is OK but I did not find it particularly gripping and it certainly does not make my top 10 list of either animal based books or mysteries.

Want to read an absolutely outstanding book on the relationship of animals and humans? Try "The Elephant Whisperer." There is more suspense in that one and it is non-fiction.

The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild

>When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them. In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom.

Option to Kill: A Nathan McBride Novel, Book 3

When Nathan McBride receives a text message from someone who claims she’s been kidnapped, it triggers a deadly chain of events that has the potential to haunt him for the rest of his life. Nathan will soon learn that nothing from his past could ever prepare him for the crisis he’ll soon be facing. The girl’s name is Lauren and she’s just 12 years old.

The plot; the characters; the action; the reading. I normally am a great fan of Dick Hill but I got the feeling he did not know what to do with this book and was over compensating. I need something that is a little more believable and with a touch of finesse I guess.

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